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The invention relates generally to the field of decision support systems, and, more specifically, to the field of computer-aided decision-making methods and systems.
In the past, various methods and systems have been developed in an attempt to improve man""s ability to make good decisions. Many psychological studies demonstrate the limitations in human cognitive abilities which lead to poor decisions. Known methods and systems tend to emphasize either process or analysis aspects of decision-making. As a result, known methods and systems are either overly simplistic, in an effort to be applicable to many different types of decisions, or are deep and complicated methods and systems that are appropriate only to the most sophisticated decisions. Further, known methods and systems do not adequately reflect intangible aspects of many real decisions. For these and other reasons, known methods and systems have met with limited user acceptance, particularly in a consumer context.
Therefore, it is a general object of this invention to provide methods and a system that provides immediate, useful, and relevant information and feedback to a person in a decision-making context that helps the person to evaluate and rank a plurality of choices and to converge to a decision, and, particularly, a consumer purchasing decision.
Another general object of the invention is to provide methods and a system that compensates for common human cognitive problems that occur in decision-making.
A still further general object of the invention is to enable consumer purchases in a non-tactile purchasing environment such as, but not limited to, those encountered in web-based or on-line sales transactions.
These objects, and others which will be apparent upon review of the disclosure, including the specification, drawings, and appendices, are achieved in a preferred embodiment of a computer-based decision-making system in exemplary on-line home and automobile purchasing decisions.
The computer-aided decision-making system and methods employ a rules-based analysis engine having a plurality of rules for selecting, scoring and ranking a plurality of subchoices. A user interface accepts user-provider information, promotions, and responses to system inquires for generating reports, proposals and feedback. The invention provides immediate, useful, and relevant information to a person in a decision-making context, overcoming common human cognitive problems that occur in decision-making making, and enabling consumer purchases in an on-line sales environment. In particular, aspects of the invention that aid a person in decision-making include, but are not limited to: managing all the sub-decisions, educating the decision-maker, highlighting the most important sub-decisions, offering the most viable proposals for evaluation, distinguishing significant differences between proposals, supplying various evaluation tools, preventing blind spots, assisting the decision-maker""s memory, gauging the progress of the decision process, and learning about the decision maker from the decision process.